Mail Coach Bound for the West Country: One picture … so many stories

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and how true it is in this instance. George Scharf the elder, a popular genre painter of the early 19th century, was also a prolific drawer of ordinary scenes in his adopted city of London. One can study his drawing of the Mail Coach Bound for the West County, 1829, endlessly, imagining many tales while thinking back on the history of coach travel. This mail coach is being readied at the Gloucester Coffee House on Piccadilly, where so many mail coaches left at night. The horses are waiting to pull this heavily laden wagon. They will pull it for 15 miles before they will need to be changed. Even with improved roads, the coach will not be going much faster than 7-8 miles per hour. Scharf drew this scene in 1829, a year before the first passenger train would be introduced. By the mid-18th century this scene in Piccadilly would have changed dramatically.

West country mail coach leaving Piccadilly, George Scharf, 1829. Click on image to view a larger version.

I count 9 people on top the wagon, one passenger sitting next to the coachman, seven on top of the wagon (one is definitely a porter), and two passengers inside. I imagine there are two more people seated inside that we cannot see, for the interior holds four passengers, and that the gentleman putting on the great coat is waiting for the porters to finish loading the packages before he takes his seat on top of the coach. The woman and child standing next to him must be waiting to see him off, for, if the rest of the mail bags, packages, and luggage are to be loaded, there won’t be room for them as well. If they are waiting to board, then I pity the four horses who will be pulling 13 people along with the mail.

Travel was quite costly back then.

Costs of travel: [estimates for 1800]

Stage Coach: 2-3 pence / mile = 1.25 pounds from London to Bath / half-price if up top / outside [but remember the average income was about £30 / year

For a family living on £25 – £30 per year, such costs were prohibitive. The cheapest seats were on top and on the outside. One can see a woman holding her child wedged between straw baskets. Should the coach take a turn too fast or be involved in an accident, she and her babe could be flung off the vehicle or trapped underneath should it overturn. At best, they felt the wind and rain and arrived at their destination disheveled and covered in road dust if the weather was dry, or soaking wet with rain. One shudders at the thought of what it felt like to be an outdoor passenger in the winter.

Mail coaches were designed to carry the mail, not to carry passengers comfortably. A close look at Scharf’s image reveals this to be so. There is no wiggle room to speak of. Since travel was expensive and laborious, those who undertook the journey usually arrived in London with lists of things to purchase for friends and family. Jane Austen certainly did, and one can assume that her brother Henry, who lived in London, arrived laden with special requests when he visited his family. The packages being loaded are quite bulky. It is easy to imagine that they contain the ribbons, muslins, china ware, shoes, hats, teas, chocolate, and other assorted items that were special ordered back home. One even sees a recently slaughtered hare among the packages.

One wonders how many more pieces of luggage the mail coach could possibly take on. The packages must be heavy for the porter walking towards the coach is bent over. The male passenger’s great coat and hat are typical of men’s outer wear at the time. As I study the detail below, I am becoming more convinced that the woman and girl are waiting to board. She is wearing a veil, to protect her face from dust, no doubt, and both are covered in layers of outer wear, including a shawl over a cloak. Even so, the ride for exposed passengers would be cold. From the clothes, one can only assume that it is winter.

Mail coaches, while more expensive to ride, were faster than private stage coaches, more stable, and less laden with passengers.

The coach was faster and, in general, less crowded and cleaner. Crowding was a common problem with private stage coaches, which led to them overturning; the limits on numbers of passengers and luggage prevented this occurring on the mail coaches. Travel on the mail coach was nearly always at night; as the roads were less busy the coach could make better speed. – Wikipedia

[William] Hazlitt has thus described, in his own graphic manner, the scene presented on the starting of the old mail-coaches:—”The finest sight in the metropolis,” he writes, “is the setting off of the mailcoaches from Piccadilly. The horses paw the ground and are impatient to be gone, as if conscious of the precious burden they convey. There is a peculiar secrecy and dispatch, significant and full of meaning, in all the proceedings concerning them. Even the outside passengers have an erect and supercilious air, as if proof against the accidents of the journey; in fact, it seems indifferent whether they are to encounter the summer’s heat or the winter’s cold, since they are borne through the air on a winged chariot. The mail-carts drive up and the transfer of packages is made, and at a given signal off they start, bearing the irrevocable scrolls that give wings to thought, and that bind or sever hearts for ever. How we hate the Putney and Brentford stages that draw up when they are gone! Some persons think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean; but give me for my private satisfaction the mail-coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them to the Land’s End.” – British History Online

Pollard, Gloucester Coffee House, Piccadilly, 1828

As I said at the beginning, this image is fraught with meaning. I wonder if, when he was sketching this scene, Scharf knew he was recording the great coaching era at its peak.

19 Responses

I think it was the winter of 1811when a suden snow and freeze killed some of the outside passengers. They arrived frozen todeath.
In December 1961, in Germany someone sent us a roe deer ( about the size of a Beagle) by mail. It had a tag on one hoof and was unwrapped, etc.

Nancy, I love how you make the era come alive with your splendid details~thanks for stopping by. I wanted to add, too, that since mail coaches began their journey at night, they were susceptible to robbers in isolated and lonely places. Travel was not for the faint of heart.

The Cockroad gang were a band of highwaymen notorious for robbing the West Country Mail Coaches. They were a fairly brutal bunch of thugs, and far removed from the romantic image of the highwayman enshrined in legend, though some of those more refined highwaymen (like Claude Du Vall, the “thief of hearts”) certainly did exist.

The Cockroad gang got their name from the small village between Bath and Bristol where they were based. They were often led by successive members of the Caines family. Abraham Caines was hung for robbery in 1727, while Benjamin Caines met the same fate in 1817. It was not until 1850 that the gang were finally defeated. So great was their strength and the fear they generated that it took a whole troop of militia to surround the village at dead of night, arresting the gang members, house by house.

This is something I have always wondered about when I see movies of people traveling from that era. I’m assuming that in Jane Austen stories that the characters must have been able to afford traveling in the coaches, for when they do travel (at least in their movies) they are inside the coaches. I know most stories have them in someone’s privately owned carriage.
I wonder if they had horse drawn trolleys then. I think here in the USA they were called an omnibus. I did a lot of research one time on the history of trolleys and found lots of neat things. The horse-drawn trolley design (some were on tracks and some weren’t) was carried over into the electric trolleys and even our modern public buses. A good example where the good ideas couldn’t be improved upon much, perhaps just updated, but kept virtually the same since yesteryear. I believe this design was also used in trains generally also. If memory serves correct, the horse drawn trolleys and that design pre-date the trains also.
Vic, to your knowledge, did people have special clothing or equipment for dealing with the weather/ elements in those situations you shared with us? Although I know its inside, they did have heaters and foot warmers. Fascinating stuff.
Thanks for the labor of love you give us in this blog!

This was fascinating to read. I was surprised to find out that the mail coach was safer to travel in than a private coach. Was it the design of the coach that made it so? Also, I know that a female was not supposed to travel alone on or in a coach but I always thought that was a decorum issue. I’m now guessing that it was a matter of real protection, not just against some uncongenial male passenger but against some highway men, too. Would I be correct in that? I know that Jane Austen was often unable to get to places she wanted or needed to go until one of her brothers could come to collect her. Cassandra probably had the same issue. I can imagine it would have made them chafe at the bit.

As you know, K, in Northanger Abbey General Tilney was criminally rude in forcing Catherine Morland, a young single girl, to return to her home by carriage unescorted. Henry’s sister, Eleanor, gave her some money for her return, for Catherine would have had to pay for passage and tips, and refreshment along the way at coaching inns. The coach would have had to stop every 2 hours to change horses. Travel was dangerous because of robbers. When you see films set in that era, you will note that the young men of the family often accompany a private carriage on horseback. I imagine the presence of such an escort would deter the robbers from attacking the coach.

Alone and cast off, Catherine grew up in more ways than one the day General Tilney ordered her out of his house..

London to Falmouth in Cornwall. That is well over 200 miles. It must have taken days to get there. You could drive it in 3 and half hours maybe four.
Salisbury would come first. A beautiful cathedral city. I was there last week. Had a a pub lunch in the High Street. Could well have been the very coaching inn that coach above stopped at. Then on down the A30 to Yeovil in Somerset. Another lovely country town. In fact all the towns and cities labelled on the side of the coach are beautiful places. After Yeovil comes Exeter. Another cathedral city with a great university. It was bombed badly in the second world war. The cathedral was left intact. The crypt of the cathedral was used as an air raid shelter. Finally Falmouth in Cornwall. A great fishing port and a enormous natural harbour.The journey from Exeter to Falmouth would have skirted the southern parts of Bodmin Moor and Exmoor.

Another thought.
Using the locations on the side of that coach, anybody coming over here for a holiday, would do very well if they booked into an 18th century inn in Salisbury and aimed to visit those places mentioned. You would have the most amazing holiday. So many fantastic places to see, including Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral as starters, a wander over Exmoor and Bodmin Moor. Who enjoys Daphne De Maurier novels? Say no more, as the Bishop said to the actress!!!
Cornwall is the most magical place with fantastic beaches , rugged coastline and fascinating artist communities. I could go on but there you are , your next holiday in these green and pleasant isles “sorted,”as we quaintly say over here.

Further to the ‘romance’ of stage coach travel I direct readers to Thackeray’s “The Paris Sketch Book”, available as a free download at http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/thackeray/Paris-Sketch-Book.pdf for the description of travel by the French equivalent…the Diligence… from Boulogne to Paris about the middle of the 19th century (approximate, but dated by the cross-Channel steamer in the opening of the first chapter). The coach ride begins at the end of p.13 in the download.

Another good book with passages about coach travel in France is Alger, John Goldsworth: Napoleon’s British Visitors and Captives, 1801-1815. It is available on the HathiTrust website and can be downloaded

Fascinating! My family’s business was Transportation/Coaches/Carriages for hire etc… (on the Continent) and I loved to read your post as well as all the shared information by other readers!
Many thanks!

The very thought of climbing aboard one of these things is scary! Especially in winter, no protection from the wind. And then there were the highway robbers! Even if all went well, it was hardly the epitome of comfort.

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Hello, my name is Vic and I live in Richmond, VA. I work in program and professional development at Virginia Commonwealth University, and I have adored Jane Austen almost all of my life. I am a proud lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I do not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, I do accept and keep books, DVDs and CDs to review.

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